


in the dawn he sailed away to be gone forever more

by bxzukhov (nbs4)



Category: Notre-Dame de Paris | The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - All Media Types, Notre-Dame de Paris | The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Reincarnation, informed death, makes me feel like i'm writing something completely original for once, pronouns only
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 17:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16371962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nbs4/pseuds/bxzukhov
Summary: she thought herself condemned to encounter these same men in every possible scenario the world could put her through, but she exercised her free will in the little ways she still could. based extremely vaguely on the calypso myth but really on the suzanne vega song about it, as well as the basic framework of victor hugo's characters.





	in the dawn he sailed away to be gone forever more

**Author's Note:**

> yes i know i've already posted something on here using suzanne vega's "calypso" as inspiration but...
> 
> you don't have to listen to it while you read per se, but you should definitely listen to the song regardless.
> 
> as always, if you're confused or concerned by anything, i'll try to explain as best i can, i know my writing here is as vague as ever

at one point, she had found herself on a small island in the aegean.

in all of that lifetime, which lasted fairly long since for once she had the kind of isolation that lent itself to not ending up tortured or executed, she was only visited by five men. of course, when each of these five men came to visit, she had no prior memories of them, but as soon as she succumbed to the waves during her last swim, aching bones and organs with the better part of a century behind them telling her to release, and woke up again in a different sort of ocean, the memories choked her once more and she longed to wash herself of them entirely.

the first was a poet, sailing alone. his dinghy had finally filled with water after threatening to for the weeks he had been on the lam from the sort of complications his nature tended to get tangled up in, and he realized that this had been a bad escape plan for someone who knew not how to swim. she jumped in the water and brought him to her shore. she hit the water out of his lungs and offered him her fruits and herbs and birds and fish until he repaired his dinghy and sailed away once more. she would have liked to remain his friend, but she let him go.

the second was a soldier, abandoned by his crew. he couldn’t remember what he had done to spark such a literal overthrow, but he could remember the pain and the sound of his arm snapping as he hit the water. she had built her own dinghy after the poet had left, not daring to go very far from shore, not having any particular reason to want to, but she used it to carry his body to her island. she offered him much more than she had offered the poet, and used all of the strength in her heart and body to nurse him back to all sorts of health. he almost didn’t want to leave, but the drive for a shinier set of armor and a woman in silk much finer than the grasses she had used to cover the few fragile spots on her weathered body led him to take her dinghy in the night and find his way home. she left it untethered on purpose, though with her heart at its heaviest.

the third was a priest, using the excuse of a mission to escape the temptations of sin. he landed on her shore deliberately, in a masterfully-crafted vessel, and sought to find an untouched soul to preach to as penance, as currency for his eventual upward passage, as a way out of the various fires that threatened to consume him that lay both behind and ahead of his current, trembling self. when all he found was her, he found he wasn’t strong enough to keep escaping sin. she managed to fight him off, but there was no satisfaction in victory. when he fell limp and moved no longer, she washed the blood from her hands and sent his body off on the boat that he came on. she wanted him to leave, but she had to admit that she would have much rather seen him paddling away with regret and a desire to better himself, not subject to the arbitrary fate of the tides.

the fourth was a drunkard, and she once again had to swim out to save his life. to her relief, she neither fell in love with him nor vice versa. when he was sober enough to recount his tale, he told her that his brother had sent off for the sea not so long ago, and he needed money from him. she told him honestly that the only other beings who had passed her shore were either long gone or dead. he weighed the evidence, and keeping in mind that the dead man must still be floating around the sea in a handsome and expensive boat, he set off in his own shabby canoe in quest of continued pleasure, though both he and she knew that if he truly found his own brother out there, he would despair. in exchange for information, she asked him to share some of his pleasure with her, and she nursed her first and last hangover in the morning, trying to remember what she had done. she was glad to see him go before she had to tell him what had killed his potential brother.

the fifth and final was a monster, but she had seen little of what humanity had to offer, and reacted the same way as she did when the first four men encountered her. he landed on her shore hoping that the island was deserted. however, when he met her, and came to understand that she would not bear him any ill will, he realized that he had truly been hoping to find a friend. they grew to be fine companions, though she was thankful that this man could at least keep his lust behind his eye. his strength and her heartiness could only go so far, however, and the more time he spent around her, the more he slowly damaged her, with unseen and unknown terrors brought over from his native land, from the dirt of cramped quarters, from the people who had grown up with the livestock, from the world of plagues and fevers.  it took all of their combined efforts and wit to keep her alive. when she awoke one dawn, after what had seemed like an eternity of pain and heat and shivering and the unrelenting sun in her eyes, she found that he and his boat were gone. she took it as his apology for infecting her with a power that neither could understand. she didn’t want him to leave, but it wasn’t her place to let him go or make him stay.    


when she finally returned to the seas that had seemingly birthed and abandoned her on this small piece of shore, she fully understood what that fifth man’s departure had taught her. so why,  _ why  _ could so few men return that simple favor?


End file.
